After making a splash at Comic-Con, NBC brought its action series The Player to TCA today. The series follows Alex Kane, a former intelligence officer (Philip Winchester) who after losing his wife, becomes the muscle to Mr. Johnson, a mysterious billionaire (Wesley Snipes) who runs the Las Vegas game. Part of the…

EXCLUSIVE: The Twilight Saga’s Nikki Reed has been cast opposite Harry Potter thesp Bonnie Wright in thriller The Highway Is For Gamblers. Writer-director Alexandra McGuinness follows her debut film Lotus Eaters with the desert-set tale of Jane (Reed), a newly crowned rodeo queen who goes missing, and her friend Heidi…

EXCLUSIVE: Archie Karas made headlines with the biggest streak in gambling history when he turned $50 into $46M over three years in the 1990s — and then lost it all in spectacular fashion. Now First Born Films is betting on his life story to fuel a feature biopic titled The Run. Poker, blackjack, pool, craps — you…

EXCLUSIVE: In what shapes up as a reteam for the writer, director and star of the Oscar-winning The Departed, Leonardo DiCaprio is attached to star in The Gambler, a Paramount remake of the 1974 drama. James Caan starred in writer James Toback’s autobiographical original screenplay as an academic whose gambling…

The (almost) king is dead. James Holzhauer, the pro gambler from Las Vegas who has astounded, confounded, impressed and/or distressed Jeopardy! fans  for nearly two months, has gone down after 32 consecutive wins — less than $60,000 short of breaking Ken Jennings’ record haul for an initial run on the show. Video of…

Screenwriter and novelist Jeb J. Rosebrook died Aug. 31 in Scottsdale, AZ. He was 83. Born in New York City on June 11, 1935, Rosebrook was raised in NYC and Connecticut before being diagnosed with childhood asthma. His parents sent him to the Quarter Circle V Bar Ranch School in Prescott, AZ and spend Christmas in…

Showtime has given a 10-episode series order to Halo (working title), an hourlong live-action scripted drama based on the award-winning Xbox video game franchise, from Awake creator Kyle Killen, Rise of the Planet of the Apes helmer Rupert Wyatt and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Killen serves as writer…

Domenick Lombardozzi (Rosewood) has joined the cast of Hard Powder, Studiocanal’s revenge action pic starring Liam Neeson. The film is an English-language remake of the 2014 Norwegian pic In Order of Disappearance from director Hans Petter Moland, who also is helming the remake from Frank Baldwin’s script. Nels…

EXCLUSIVE: In competitive bidding, Participant Media has acquired worldwide rights to Captive State, a package for a big-scale film that Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes helmer Rupert Wyatt will direct from a script he wrote with Erica Beeney. The project will be produced by David Crockett and Wyatt. Jeff Skoll and…

Tracy Scott, a script supervisor whose credits include four recent Best Picture Oscar nominees along with TV’s Happy Endings and Winfred, has died of cancer. She was 46. Annapurna’s Megan Ellison, for whom Scott worked on Joy, Foxcatcher, American Hustle and Her, confirmed the news on Twitter: Rest in peace Tracy…

EXCLUSIVE: Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films and mega-producer Irwin Winkler are reteaming to develop a feature film based on the Dwayne J Clark’s book My Mother, My Son. Oscar winner Winkler (Rocky, Raging Bull) will co-write and direct the drama based on the 2012 memoir centering on Clark, an entrepreneur in the senior…

George Kennedy, a versatile actor whose long list of credits includes the Airport and Naked Gun films and an Oscar for his supporting role in Cool Hand Luke, has died in Middleton, ID. He was 91. Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris told the Idaho Statesman Kennedy died at 4:35 AM Sunday. The cause of death isn’t…